'Support for the Justices'

Rose Bird's campaign use of the "rule of law" rubric as an explanation (or apology) for her decisions is tantamount to the Hunt brothers advocating the silver standard.

The chief justice would have the voters believe that she slavishly follows the "rule of law" in overturning death penalties, creating novel substantive and procedural rights for criminal defendants, imposing new forms of responsibility and liability on business and property owners and striking down popularly enacted laws. Her claim is nonsense and worse.

Bird, as one of seven on the Supreme Court, makes the rule of law. She imposes on us what she conceives to be "due process," "equal protection" and other nebulous "rules of law." Moreover, the chief justice has, more than any judge in our land, sought to fashion these rules according to the dictates of her own personal political and moral agenda. (In her heart, Rose Bird knows this is precisely the reason her old friend Jerry Brown installed her as chief justice.)